I wouldn’t really say I write for change. In theory, yes, that’s a wonderful idea: the idea that everything can be changed through the power of the pen (or should I say keyboard), but I honestly don’t believe that’s true in my case. Would I love if my blog posts really inspired people and made them want to change the world around them? Yes! But I know that’s probably not the case. In fact, I think it would be a little naïve rather than ambitious of me to think that.

Actually, I kind of like that my words are, in a sense, insignificant. Throughout my time in the Rising Voices Fellowship, I’ve struggled with whether or not I wanted to share my monthly blog posts on Facebook. While this task may just seem like a matter of clicking a button, it was so much more to me. Sharing my blog posts on Facebook meant that all these people I knew would be reading my thoughts, not just anonymous people on JWA’s website. I’m still not really sure why this scared me so much. I guess in a sense, I felt like having my friends and family read my posts was sort of intrusive. I didn’t really want everybody to know what I was thinking and how I felt. It was as if clicking a “post” button would be the same as giving everybody I knew the key to a locked room that contains so many of my innermost thoughts and feelings.

So now you may be wondering, “Well why would you join a fellowship program that requires you to blog every month?” Well first of all, don’t get me wrong, I love writing blog posts, but just not for the reasons one may think. I like writing them because I find the process to be therapeutic. My posts are all essentially long, wonderful rants about how I feel about various things, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Everybody needs space to vent and writing gives you that. I also love that writing allows me to express my beliefs fully, without anybody arguing with me or shooting my ideas down.

For example, I found writing my post titled, “An Open Letter to ‘Good Feminists’” to be very therapeutic. I loved that I was able to freely express all these pent up feelings that I had been feeling for so long. I felt as if a weight was lifted off my shoulders.

With all this being said, I joined the fellowship for other reasons that also have nothing to do with sharing my writing with others. I joined RVF in hopes of learning more about my own points of view, learning about others’ points of view, and meeting strong and independent women role models. All of these wishes came true. This blog post is a little bittersweet; sweet because it again gives me a creative outlet, but bitter because it marks the end of a year filled with growth and learning.